


As Long as You’re Alive

by The_Amarathine_Carrion



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Big spoilers for CF route, Blood and Violence, Body Horror, Character Study, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Don’t read this if you’re looking for a good time, Graphic Description of Corpses, Hurt No Comfort, It’s not smut though, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Content, Stream of Consciousness, That’s should be the sticker on the front of the game tbh, or very little comfort at least
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:47:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22247353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Amarathine_Carrion/pseuds/The_Amarathine_Carrion
Summary: “He only says it when he knows Felix can’t run away. Sylvain presses his lips up against his ear so that he can’t possibly miss it. He may lie anyway, tell him that he can’t hear it over the roar of their recent battle and the screams of all who have died by his hand.”Or,Sylvain asks Felix to marry him three times before they meet at the Tailtean Plains.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 14
Kudos: 78





	As Long as You’re Alive

**Author's Note:**

> I saw a tweet a few days ago of a short comic where Sylvain asked CF route Felix to marry him and he told him to wait until he returns from Arianrhod. I haven’t been able to get this out of my head since.

The first time Sylvain asks Felix to marry him, he pretends he doesn’t hear it.

He groans, biting down hard on the inside of Sylvain’s thigh, nails digging deep into his hips as he pushes Sylvain against the door with more force than is necessary. Sylvain takes it in stride, like always, responding with a firm hand in Felix’s hair as he yanks it and pushes Felix’s bloody lips against his cock.

They don’t make love anymore. He wouldn’t even call it sex. They fuck— in secret corridors and off the road inns and private places that were once public that he doesn’t even want to remember. All thoughts of tenderness have long since gone. That’s fine. He’d thought it was fine for the both of them. It’s not what they’re here to do, not with the paths they’ve chosen.

It’s war. He knows that. Why Sylvain asked such a stupid question is beyond him.

He keeps his mouth busy to avoid answering. Sylvain’s own mouth is busy— busy making little moans and curses under his breath, holding back on what he truly wants to do and say because it’s dangerous, to say the least, if they were to be caught.

It’s dangerous to get caught up in feeling anything. Regardless, they’ve long since been ensnared in that web. Felix has been waiting for years for an eight legged monster to devour them. She’d come sometimes, in his dreams, venom fangs dripping, eyes like the crown of the goddess spread evenly across her forehead. Every night was a different face. Every face was the face of a person he’d killed. He makes sure to remember all of them. All of his strength is stored in the purchase of their blood.

He locks eyes with Sylvain, jaw flush against the ginger curls of his groin. It’s thicker and coarser than it was during their Monastery days. There’s no time to care about such things when the next fight for your life could be moments away. They have so little time even for something like this, yet they find themselves in this position too often, and somehow Felix is unable to cut this last little aspect of their connection off.

Now the fool asks Felix to marry him—out loud—where Felix can hear him, like his snarling teeth aren’t pressed right up against his dick. Merging titles and wearing rings, calling each other by different names, none of those things will be able to give them what they truly want. Putting their reasons on a piece of paper won’t save them. There’s no escaping the web. There’s no going back.

Felix had asked Sylvain to marry him only once and he didn’t count it because they were kids.

Sylvain laughed like the answer was obvious. “We can’t get married. We’re boys. That’s something you do with girls!”

Felix wrinkled his nose with distaste. “Ingrid’s a girl.”

“She’s not the only girl out there, you know.” He grinned proudly, placing a hand on Felix’s shoulder like he was imparting some great wisdom.

That moment alone should have been enough to convince him it wouldn’t work out, but he was six and already lonely and all he knew about marriage was that it was supposed to be with someone you always wanted by your side.

“I guess so.”

Sylvain’s eyes were different then, as was his smile. Despite the abuse he’d already suffered at the hands of his brother and the neglectful ordinance from his parents, it hadn’t yet ruined the hope that every child carries until time eventually snatches it from their heart.

“I’ll make you a promise instead.”

Sylvain crouched down so they were eye level and Felix knew he was being serious. It infuriates him later, but it’s comforting then.

“No matter what happens, we’ll die together, okay? Even if I end up marrying someone I hate and you don’t marry anyone at all, I’ll be there for you, for as long as you’re alive.”

Felix was so clingy, his heart so open and forgiving in a way that he can scarcely remember. Words like that, a soft hand on his head, a toothy grin, and a laugh that soothed his distressing thoughts like only spiced mead does these days were enough.

“Okay. You’re gonna be real old then, because I’ll live a long, long, time!”

Sylvain hardly smiled anymore, at least in the mere hours between the months that Felix sees him. He allowed himself to feel guilty about it, at first, when they started doing whatever it is they’re doing. He cut that line of thinking off as quickly as he could; there’s no use in pretending that their situation was special just because they’d been born into nobility. They both decided to fight under the banners they chose.

Even if Felix had stayed, there’s no guarantee when it comes to survival. In reality, no matter how prepared you come, every skirmish is a roll of the dice.

“Marry me.”

Sylvain’s hands loosen their grip in Felix’s hair, a thumb brushing against his cheek. Felix has yet to pull away, letting Sylvain soften in his mouth. He doesn’t know why. It’s already time for him to leave again.

Sylvain doesn’t let him move when he pulls out, holding his face with both of his hands. His eyes are still too dark and smoky for someone who’s already come. Felix can’t handle it. He doesn’t look at them.

“No.”

Sylvain’s laugh comes like a dry wine, intoxicating and bitter and something Felix continues to drink in even when he knows he will just throw it up later.

“I expected that. Still, I had to ask.”

Sylvain’s hands are rough and dry and battle marked, but to Felix it’s the softest touch he’s ever had. It’s unacceptable. He needs them to be hard and punishing and merciless— to wrap around his throat and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze until he’s taken all the breath he has left.

He won’t. Sylvain has never been that way, not with him. Felix doesn’t hold anything back, but he won’t ask Sylvain to marry him again, and he won’t say yes.

“We’re at war. We don’t have time for that.”

It doesn’t matter what either of them wants anymore. That’s the truth, isn’t it? But they’re still here, fucking, pretending like it’s all they need to carry them through to the next disaster. The shred of childlike faith that still exists in Sylvain lies in the golden thread tied to the belief that his love for Felix is enough to make all the calamity worth it.

Felix is the worse man here, because he lets him believe it.

“So what? We never have any damn time. Marry me anyway.”

“Shut up and suck me off.”

Such a sentence used to sound harsh even to his own ears. Now it’s something that both of them have come to expect, even enjoy. Sylvain is the only person he’s been with who’s willing to take exactly what Felix needs to give. His needs have become more animalistic over time. He finds himself relating more to the Boar as his body count rises and all he can think about is how high he can reach into the sky when he climbs it.

He thrusts into Sylvain’s mouth with abandon, chasing the end more than the pleasure. It’s like swordplay now: quick and efficient, and with a single purpose. Once he’s finished, Sylvain wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and stands to kiss him. Felix usually allows it. It’s easier than saying goodbye.

* * *

  
Leonie was the first of his old classmates to die. He cut her down, aiming for the horse’s legs first, then quickly maneuvering to swing at her neck as she fell. He misjudged the force and the angle enough that the head didn’t sever completely, and he couldn’t get to her again to finish her off with all of their reinforcements. He imagines her death was excruciating.

Despite his better judgement, he vows to himself that he won’t make the same mistake with the others. He pushes himself even harder in his training so that their deaths will be as swift as possible.

They weren’t terribly close, but they’d sparred together often enough and shared battle tactics. She had even taken a surprise win with her cleverness a few times. Leonie worked hard and was a formidable opponent. Killing her was as unavoidable as any of the others to come, but out of all of them her death haunts him the most.

When Sylvain comes to meet him on horseback in that same type of armor, Felix sees her for a moment. It’s not the last time he does. Looking up at the Paladin later that night, her face replaces his and Felix stills in terror as Sylvain buries himself inside. Sylvain’s mouth froths and spits blood when he asks Felix what’s wrong, his crooked neck dangling at an impossible angle, threatening to tear further until it finally snaps. _It’s nothing,_ Felix says. _Hurry up and move._

It’s not the first or the last time he lies.

Sylvain doesn’t ask Felix to marry him during that encounter. He bites back his own selfishness. Felix is losing the ability to be grateful for anything, but he catalogs Sylvain’s restraint as a gift that will temper him toward a point of no return.

Everything he does is about developing the strength and resolve to follow his vision to it’s end. Hasn’t it always been? There’s a different taste to it today. He used to have time to consider worrying about a future, to connect his goals to accomplishments. Even though he didn’t know how to answer Byleth when they asked him what he would do with that strength, he fought with the fervor of achieving something new and almost unattainable.

There’s no place for people like that in a war. Survival is either weathered by a whetstone hanging from your neck or you’ve already lost. His answer to the Professor had been a fist then, now it’s a mausoleum.

Even the Ashen Demon seems to Felix to hold more humanity in their heart than him. Claude flies away, returning to the land of his birth, escaping the fate that captured so many others. Lysethia holds her palms out in surrender, sick as she claims she is, and is fortunate when she turns them again that it is not to cup the elixir of life drained from a friend. 

* * *

  
Sylvain asks him a second time after they manage to defend Garreg Mach from the Knights of Seiros. Seteth throws a heavily wounded Flayn onto his Wyvern and Byleth lets them leave, again, watching with a face that always betrays less than their actions. Felix understands less about their choices every day.

He wanders until he finds Shamir’s body, pelted with arrows, poison still bubbling and seeping from the wounds that have burned through her blood and continue to mar her skin even after death. He didn’t see whose battalion did it. Alois’s axe arm is lying somewhere in the distance. His armor couldn’t hold against Dorothea’s meteor and there is very little that remains of his once jovial face. It’s unlikely that his small book of those horrendous jokes survived the fire when the rest of his body didn’t, but Felix takes a moment to search for it all the same.

“Marry me, Felix.”

He only says it when he knows Felix can’t run away. Sylvain presses his lips up against his ear so that he can’t possibly miss it. He may lie anyway, tell him that he can’t hear it over the roar of their recent battle and the screams of all who have died by his hand. Sylvain would probably accept that answer; it’s something his Boar King would say if Felix were there to pester him, he’s sure.

He wraps his thighs around Sylvain’s torso tighter— arches into him and constricts his throat with his hands. It would be menacing to anyone else, but Sylvain takes his warning like a kiss on the tip of his nose. His eyes never waver in their trust as he continues to thrust into him. The wall behind him doesn’t hurt as his back is ground against it, even though he’d been slammed between trees and armor and mounts in their last battle more times than he could count.

Sylvain’s roguish face, his impish mouth, the way he touches Felix before and after they fuck, like he’s still something legitimate, still something of value— that hurts.

He relinquishes his grasp before it becomes a problem and the gasping breaths Sylvain takes remind him of so many images at once it makes his head swim. The sounds men make when they die and when they are pleasured are too similar sometimes. Sex and death have become blurred here, in Sylvain’s arms, and that is why he chases it. He’s unable to commit to one or the other fully, but he lets Sylvain come and take what is his, after all that he’s given.

“You know why we can’t.”

Felix assumes that he does, though he’s never actually told him.

“Let them have their war. We don’t have to do this anymore. Leave with me. Please, let me take you away.”

Sylvain does not stop fucking him as he speaks to Felix like they are having this conversation over tea. Their foreheads are touching and sticking together with sweat. Sylvain whispers that he loves him before he kisses him so he isn’t sad when Felix doesn’t say it back. Felix remembers this tactic from when the world was whole and the worst thing he had to worry about concerning their relationship was how their fathers would react.

His father is waiting for him now, in Arianrhod, to be sliced through the stomach by his own son’s sword. Sylvain is waiting whenever and wherever he is for Felix to hand over his necrotic heart. He somehow cannot allow him to touch it and see how it has withered, even though he knows Sylvain has glimpsed it many times before.

“Ask me again, after Arianrhod.”

After Arianrhod. After his father dies. When Felix kills him, and he does not hesitate to consider _if_ because he _can,_ and he _will,_ then Sylvain can ask himself if Felix is still the kind of man he wants to marry. There is so little time left before Edelgard storms the walls of Fhirdiad. Sylvain cannot avoid his duty to Dimitri, cannot abandon him now, it is too late.

If he continues to come to Felix and ask him that question, Sylvain will die. 

He may die by Felix’s own hand, if it comes down to it. He is aware of the possibility. It may be a mercy, somehow. He tries to convince himself of it over and over and over again— because he’s practiced their end a thousand times by now. He practices death and he practices hate. He doesn’t practice love, even when it comes to him in the form of a boy that was able to hook his pinky around most of Felix’s hand and tell him that he’ll never let him be alone again.

He told Glenn that he loved him and then he died so now Felix only knows what love feels like when somebody makes him scared. He doesn’t know how to tell somebody he loves them, so he tells them that he hates them when what he really means is he’s terrified to lose them.

* * *

  
Byleth finds him battering a dummy with gauntlets before they leave for Arianrhod. He’s been at it for hours, imagining his old man’s face. Nothing changes. He’s still able to tear into it without any reluctance.

“Can you fight them?”

Felix knocks the head clean off with the assistance of his crest and one particularly focused punch. He’s calm. Murdering people is just a part of his everyday expectations now, and it turns out to be the only thing left that he’s good at.

“Don’t underestimate me. I’ve been preparing for this for a long time.”

Byleth has probably killed ten times as many people than he has, yet they still have a place for mercy in their heart. He doesn’t see it in their face, he sees it in their actions, and Felix has always respected that. It’s how he ended up here. He could give a damn about the Emperor’s ambitions. There’s nothing that tethers him here but the desire to surpass his old Professor.

“This isn’t just about your father. There will be other people there that you care about.”

That’s been the case from the beginning. It didn’t stop him then and it won’t stop him now. He doesn’t appreciate the interruption, especially to discuss something as trivial as his _feelings._

“None of that matters. All I care about is getting stronger and ending this.”

Byleth doesn’t blink often enough, Felix decides, as he seethes at them. They aren’t finished talking yet; he knows them well enough now to tell. He’s forgotten the mannerisms of all his friends over the past five years and traded that information for the very few discernible traits he’s found in his Professor. He supposes it’s only fitting that he’s become this way as well.

“Love isn’t a weakness, Felix. It’s what gives some people the strength to fight.”

Felix picks up his sword—examines it carefully—the reflection of amber eyes so sharp and pointed he doesn’t recognize them. Love has never been much of a factor in the decisions he makes- and certainly not anymore.

“Not for people like us.”

Byleth draws their own sword. It’s not the Sword of the Creator, not today, but it’s a challenge all the same. They assume a defensive stance, waiting for him to make the first strike.

“No,” they agree. “Not for people like us.”

He still can’t defeat them. Love or no love, power is power and Byleth has more of it at their disposal. If he fails at Arianrhod, it will be because he lacks that, nothing else.

“Sylvain loves you.”

He’s shocked for a moment, then angry, then something else he can’t quite place- something old that’s become foreign and uncomfortable. He was going to give Byleth the leeway to keep talking after the win, but if this is the subject he wants nothing to do with it.

He doesn’t ask how they know, he only refutes it.

“I don’t love him.”

Byleth sheathes their sword and shrugs. They’ve always seemed so unbothered, even when they’re lecturing.

“Perhaps not, but he loves you. And that just might be enough.”

It’s not. It’s never enough. Love, even as an action, isn’t anything special or different. There’s plenty of people who’ve succeeded on vengeance or ambition or idolatry. Whatever it takes for him to succeed, he’ll never believe it will come down to love.   
  


* * *

Sylvain keeps good on his promise and asks Felix to marry him one last time.

It’s raining. Both him and his horse are caked with blood and sweat and mud. Felix isn’t entirely sanitary himself, both inside and out. His father went down so easily. There was hardly anything he felt as he wiped the blood from his sword. It was like putting an old dog out of his misery.

Byleth had been right though, that there were people he still cared about at Arianrhod. _Were_.

“Ingrid’s dead.”

Felix doesn’t even wait for Sylvain to dismount before he says it. It’s like opening a festering wound, the quicker he cuts to the chase the sooner it will be over. He doesn’t vocalize his following thought.

_We’re next._

Sylvain doesn’t look at him. There’s a long stretch of silence as he focuses on caring for the horse, drying her and brushing her so she won’t catch cold and die.

“Did you kill her, Felix?”

“No,”

It had been Bernadetta that did it. She placed herself out of sight and shot her down from her Pegasus, even as she cried.

“But I didn’t save her.”

“Hmm.”

Sylvain’s eyes are pensive. It’s the clearest part of his face that Felix can see.

“It’s not too late for us to leave.”

It is. It had long since been too late. Time has never been on their side. The Goddess didn’t grant him the power to correct his mistakes. More and more of them seem to slip by.

“I’ll ask you again, Felix. Marry me. We don’t have to die for this.”

Ah, the lie sounds so tempting for once. Sylvain still sounds so sure. The stable is warm and the light from the lanterns burn brightly, but the storm continues to rage outside. Felix knows, he _knows_ , those doors won’t hold until the morning.

“I’m not dying for anything. Stay out of my way when we march on to Fhirdiad.”

They don’t even fuck that night. It’s the longest stretch of time he’s spent with Sylvain since he’s returned to the Monastery. Everybody is too busy preparing the invasion, and those who aren’t essential to the core of the Emperor’s team were released for a few days rest. He couldn’t think of anything to do that fell under that category, except seeing Sylvain.

Nobody will recognize them this far out of the way, he’s made sure of that.

“Felix, I’ll always love you.”

They have spent hours here, in their tiny borrowed room, without saying much of anything. Sylvain was filthy, but there’s no proper bath, and it’s taken multiple basins of water and an entire bar of soap to make him presentable again.

“Shut up. Stop talking like you’re going to die.”

He refuses to give in to fear. He refuses to let Sylvain know how he terrifies him.

Felix kneels, stroking a new scar that Sylvain has acquired on his knee. Sylvain doesn’t have nearly as many of them as he does, but the ones he does have are bigger and uglier. Most of Felix’s scars are like silver threads—constellations—tiny and distant and numerous. He weaves in and out of the range of his opponents, teasing them with the smallest taste of his blood before he gives them the full taste of his blade.

“I’d die to hear you say it back just once before I do.”

Felix rolls his eyes, feeling like they have temporarily slipped back into the people they were in their Monastery days.

“Idiot. You can’t die twice.”

“I’d find a way to do it for you.”

He would, wouldn’t he? Easily. Willingly. It’s a liability. Felix can’t allow it.

“Don’t.”

Sylvain is so much quieter now. He doesn’t argue, doesn’t prompt Felix, doesn’t push him to see his reaction. He speaks with his hands more than anything, and right now he brushes them back behind Felix’s ears and pulls his hair free.

“Okay.”

* * *

They weren’t supposed to be intercepted.

Felix should have expected it. He was the only one in Edelgard’s army who knew the Boar well enough that he’d be unable to resist the thirst of a battle like this. There’s no way he’d stay put in Fhirdiad and wait for it to come to him.

Still, five years and a hell of a war was enough to change any man. He’d accounted too much on the hope that the presence of his friends and the needs of his Kingdom might sway him.

It’s raining again. He hates it. He’s trained to adjust to all kinds of weather, yet the mud still inhibits his movements.

The Tailtean Plains are familiar to Felix, but they make for an unstable battleground from where he is standing. There are so many enemies ahead of them that it’s difficult to see where to proceed. He knows of two paths he can take. He’ll go to the east, take cover in the trees, scope out the battlefield, and decide what he can do from there.

He feels more careful than usual, staying on the defense and not stopping to deal final blows to the people who stand in his way. Sylvain is in the capital— He must be. There’s no way he’d come out here in the rain and actually take this fight seriously.

There are some mages ahead and they might give him trouble. He looks over his shoulder to see if Linhardt or Dorothea followed him to help. He’s not so lucky. Everyone in his line of vision is nameless and faceless. He pulls out his bow and takes aim, never stopping to see if it hits his target. He already has to take extra care not to slip in the blood that’s layering over the soil.

He hears the unmistakable cries of demonic beasts in the distance. He isn’t surprised. They already have one in their King. A flash of lightning illuminates the way in front of him. He’s almost made it to the trees.

The singing smell of burning flesh assails his nostrils. From far across the river he spies Dorothea dropping another meteor on a huge beast that somehow manages not to crumple underneath it. Caspar, Bernadetta, and Edelgard are teaming up with her to take it down, but it seems like they’re hardly chipping away at it. It looks like he took the right path.

Another flash of lightning hits so close by the energy is palpable. He’s forced to shield his eyes. He curses and continues toward the spot he’d seen moments before. He’s not going to be able to scout from the trees anymore, but there’s hardly anyone standing in his way in this direction. He can head north from the thicket to where the Boar King is surely waiting.

He stops suddenly, almost skidding into the water.

There is a glint of red to his right. He knows it anywhere— but it cant be, not here. Sylvain is in the capital. He belongs there, protecting the citizens like the stupid great knight everyone always joked he’d be.

“Hey, Felix?”

_No._

“Remember when we were kids..”

_I don’t._

“..and we made a promise about dying together?”

_“You’re gonna be real old then, because I’ll live a long, long, time!”_

“I remember.”

Sylvain’s face has remained uncharacteristically stoic. Felix would think they were inviting him for a ride into the capital gardens if it weren’t for the lance pointed toward his throat.

“Well, seems we’re about to kill each other.”

_You just had to come, didn’t you? You couldn’t listen, couldn’t stay away, even for one day._

“Sorry, Sylvain. You’ll die first.”

_Don’t worry. I’ll follow you._

The screams of the battle blur into one deafening sound. In the summer of his fourth year, Felix learned how to swim in the still chilled rivers of Gautier. Ingrid and Dimitri took to it right away, but Felix didn’t even want to get near the edge until Miklan picked Sylvain up and threw him in as far as he could. Felix was trying to save him, but only ended up thrashing at the bottom until Sylvain dove down and pulled him coughing and shaking to the bank.

The uncomfortable tingle of his too full ears and the burning in his nose reminds him of drowning. The drizzling rain has slowly risen to a downpour, that’s why his eyes are so wet. It’s poor conditions.

Sylvain readies his horse. The Lance of Ruin pulsates ghoulishly, like it is connected to Sylvain’s own heart. Felix left behind his Aegis Shield, thinking it would only weigh him down. He’s faster and stronger and more coordinated than Sylvain in almost every way, but the eyes of his paramour shine behind his lance with a morose determination and the sinking sickness of Felix’s stomach tells him that this is their moment.

He numbly wonders if the Boar will be the only one of them to survive today.

Sylvain charges with an unexpected agility. Felix tenses, watching, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike or avoid. He turns as Sylvain gives his first thrust and misses narrowly. The otherworldly energy flowing through the relic crackles loudly, even through his waterlogged ears.

Felix retreats warily, contemplating if he should use his bow to shoot Sylvain down the way Bernadetta did when she claimed the life of one of his oldest friends. Efficiency was the key here. He’d trained for this a hundred times over, ran the scenario in his head, but now, as he searches for a weakness in the armor of the person he cares about most in the world, he realizes that Byleth was right once more.

Sylvain is one of those fools that finds strength through love. He wouldn’t be able to face Felix like this otherwise.

Felix does love him, but his love for Sylvain isn’t a strength or a weakness. It just is.

Byleth was wrong, too. It isn’t enough.

Felix goes to cut down his horse just like he did when he faced Leonie. It’s been less than a year since he started taking the lives of people he once ate at the same table with, but it feels so long ago already. Sylvain predicts what he’s about to do and throws himself off at the last second, barreling over and into him, knocking his breath away and pinning him underneath his ridiculous weight.

Felix’s sword is barely within his grasp, and Sylvain restrains his wrist with one of his hands while he presses their bodies down in the mud as if he wished for nothing more than to sink down into the earth with him. Brute strength is on his side here. Felix has made a costly mistake.

The Lance of Ruin is poised to strike and Felix can practically see the stain of his guts that Sylvain will be forced to clean thoroughly later. Yet Sylvain is hesitating, boring his eyes into Felix’s as if he was trying to have a silent conversation with him one last time.

There’s nothing left to be said. The only thing left to do is die. Isn’t that what they’d promised so long ago? Sylvain always kept good on his promises to Felix- only for Felix, never for anybody else.

It’s already taken too long. Felix focuses all his energy, ramming into Sylvain with a single headbutt. He hears the cracking of cartilage as he breaks Sylvain’s nose. Sylvain cries out, but doesn’t close his eyes for more than a second and remains like a stone on his body.

The surprise attack still loosens his grip enough for Felix to pull his sword arm free.

Quick and painless— that was what he’d promised. It’s why he trained. There were other things that were impossible to prepare for.

It was instinctual to turn his sword in his wrist, draw it back, and push it up through the crux of Sylvain’s throat- withdraw it quickly so that it wouldn’t act as a crude tourniquet. The blood and froth that Sylvain pours and vomits all over his face, neck, and chest is much more abundant than the vision he had at the inn months ago, and so much worse in that this time he knows it is real.

There is a searing in his chest and he pants from the pain of the light pressure of rain against it. His vision clouds as he realizes that Sylvain has pierced him with the lance all the way through his back and into the earth. He scrambles anyway, impulsively tearing at Sylvain’s body and pushing him sideways so he won’t fall and crush him to death before he bleeds out into the soil. 

Felix doesn’t remember the last time he screamed from the pain of a wound he received in battle. He’s never been injured by a relic, but it’s as if it is sucking all of the blood out of him and replacing it with concentrated venom. Half of his body already feels like it is on fire and seems to be numb as he finds he can only lift one of his hands to tug at the lance with all of his might.

It’s stuck deep, and Felix only gets weaker as the blood loss increases with his movements. He sucks in a gasp and grits his teeth, arching at the same time that he uses all his remaining strength to wiggle the lance out of the soil.

The rain is what saves him, in the end. The soil is loose and slippery from the combination of liquids and the extra space he gives it in his arching back allows him to free it. He rolls over, crying and cursing, pulling it the rest of the way out- collapsing with his eyes shut tight in agony.

The burning begins to subside as soon as the weapon is gone. Felix’s hands tremble as he brings them to his chest in an effort to staunch the bleeding. It’s no good. He’s too cold and shaky and faint, even for the amount that it’s raining. He dimly notices a distinct lack of noise as the pain lessens but his tremors worsen. He’s gone into shock. He opens his eyes blearily, unable to resist the temptation of discerning the outcome of their conflict.

He shouldn’t have. Sylvain’s murky eyes are mere inches from his face. His mouth is askew with blood and dirt smeared all around it. He is undeniably dead and Felix still isn’t. Sylvain always had to be at least a step ahead of him, didn’t he? That annoying habit of his taunts Felix from beyond the grave.

The glow of the relic between them ensures he will not ever be able to forget the sight of Sylvain as Felix takes what he is certain are his final moments beside him.

* * *

The Goddess’s cruelty knows no bounds, if she exists.

Felix doesn’t believe in the Goddess, so it is only his own cruelty he can curse and condemn.

Darkness does not claim him forever that day- not his body, not his soul.

It is a long time coming before he will walk willingly into the arms of the reaper: a skeleton with an unforgettable smile and a halo of auburn waves, despoiled by mats of it’s own life force and muck.

Sylvain died believing that he’d kept his promise. Felix wanted to believe it too, with his strength now fading, having given up everything that was important to him to fight by the direction of someone he truly didn’t understand. When the light once again hit the back of his lids to rouse him, he crawled over the corpse of the man he never got to tell that he loved and retched over and over again.

Sylvain’s cheek is colder than the phantom of an organ Felix once dared to call his heart. He drags two fingers down it, wiping a stripe of his blood through the layer of filth.

He’d already sullied them beyond redemption long ago, touching Sylvain’s corpse wouldn’t damn him or save him. He’d said his goodbyes, made up his mind to cut down anyone in his way. He’d prepared for their deaths in the same way he’d prepared for his own. He never prepared for a life without them.

He’s the only one left now, so what is his way?

He lays down beside Sylvain, staring into the glassy surface of his eyes, feeling like his are much of the same. Death doesn’t seem so different from how he’s lived during the past year. He’s never pitied the dead, nor worshipped or envied them. Yet now, the only desire he has left is to embrace them.

Leonie’s dangling head swings like a pendulum over Sylvain’s shoulder. He hears her laugh, from the nights they’d stay up late training—whenever she got a hit in on him it made her so happy. Life was so simple for her. To live is a simple task for everybody but him.

His sword is lying close to his feet. His body aches like it never has before, but he should be able to kick it up until he can grab it. One uncomplicated action and he wouldn’t have to worry about anything anymore. He could finish the job that he knew deep down inside Sylvain wouldn’t be able to do.

The Lance had hurt like hell, but it didn’t pierce a vital spot. Sylvain didn’t miss it by accident. He’s too good at what he does when he’s actually serious.

_“..but he loves you. And that just might be enough.”_

It hadn’t been enough to save the both of them, so what was the point? All of Sylvain’s speeches, the sweet nothings he whispered in the dark when he thought Felix was sleeping, all of his stupid proposals even after being turned down over and again, and he really came thinking that Felix couldn’t kill him. A fool—a fucking fool he was—to think that Felix would take his sacrifice as anything other than an insult to the very intimacy only he was unafraid to speak of.

The rain has since stopped, but not before it could wash all of Sylvain’s blood from Felix’s blade. It is no matter. Soon it will be stained again, one last time.

There’s no honor in it. He’s nothing like his father, believing that dying for somebody else is in the fate of their bloodline. It’s all bullshit, Felix doesn’t serve anyone, but it’s still something he knows. The only thing left that he knows is how to live and die by the sword.

The point of the blade begins to dig into his gut as he steadies his breathing. He contemplates not being quick about it, as he has tried so hard to do with the others. He’s not sure he deserves it, but it would be difficult to follow through otherwise.

_“Stop it Felix.”_

Felix does, and almost drops the blade. It should be impossible. Sylvain’s mouth does not move, but his voice is there. It’s everywhere, echoing as if they were lying in a great canyon instead of another meaningless graveyard.

“I broke our promise. I’m still alive.”

_“So you are. I’m here to help you keep it that way.”_

If Felix had any emotion left to give, it would be anger. Anger is always the last to go and the first to come. He’s built an empire of his own out of his rage. He barely has the energy to thrust his sword into his stomach, there’s nothing left to give to a deathbed apparition.

“I killed you myself.”

“ _Yeah, you did. It’s only been a few hours so I’m still kind of pissed about it, honestly.”_

His mind can just estimate information like that even at a time like this then? Fine. He’s too weary to argue. He closes his eyes, choking on the fetid stench that comes when he accidentally breathes too deeply through his nose in an attempt to steady himself again.

“ _You still don’t understand why I made that promise, huh?”_

Felix doesn’t understand a lot of things. It shouldn’t surprise his own hallucination.

“I guess I don’t.”

He supposes he’s like Dimitri now, answering ghosts. Somehow he knows that Dimitri is lucky enough to be resting among his dead at last. Will he show his face before Felix as well?

_“You were always so reckless as a child. No one could prevent you from hurting yourself. I made that promise because of how stubborn you are. It was my young idiot self thinking that it might protect you- that maybe if things were to really get out of hand you would remember that you couldn’t die without me, and you’d live.”_

Live. The one thing he never really allowed himself to do. Sylvain’s ghost has the audacity to make demands from the foolish thoughts he’s planted deep into his brain.

_“You’re alive. So you really didn’t break my promise after all.”_

Is he alive? Perhaps, if life were merely tied to a pulse. The Sylvain in his head seems to think so, though Felix considers his echo to be more lively than him.

_“If you die now, Felix, especially like this, that’s what will really break it. As long as you’re alive, I’m right there with you.”_

A gentle breeze flutters through Sylvain’s hair, bringing it close enough to Felix’s face that he could lean forward to kiss it. The tone in the specter’s voice suggests a note of finality. It is confirmed when the minutes continue to go by without another word, even when Felix cannot help but beg for a response.

There’s a noise that takes over in the silence, slowly increasing in volume. Felix is horrified to realize that it is sobbing, and since he is all that remains, it must be coming from him.

He doesn’t know if he’ll actually survive the injuries, but he drops the blade, and crawls over Sylvain’s body. He threads his fingers through the ruined spikes, bringing their foreheads together, letting the tears wash away enough of the grime on Sylvain’s face to reveal pale white lips.

Sylvain looks like he is smiling. Felix has seen enough people die to know that isn’t the case— but this is exactly how he wants to remember him. He doesn’t hesitate to kiss him. It won’t even begin to repay all the times Sylvain kissed Felix when he was cold and filthy and senseless.

“I love you.”

It’s much too late for him to say it, but Felix tells him anyway. He fumbles for Sylvain’s hand, heavy and discolored, dragging it to his chest. Felix’s heart beats so furiously that he can feel it through his palm holding the deceased appendage in place.

“I’m alive, Sylvain. As long as I live, be here with me.”

Sylvain can’t hear his proclamation from where he is. Felix will have to show him instead.

**Author's Note:**

> I am on [twitter](http://twitter.com/thefriedpipes)! Come talk more about fe3h with me.


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